Near disaster
Although it’s coming along slowly, the white oak dining table I’ve been working on is looking good.
Between wrapping up our Fall 2024 issue and taking care of a few other small shop chores, it’s almost done.
The tabletop is still on the sawhorses in the middle of my workshop, but yesterday it spent about 30 minutes sitting atop the legs I had turned. Getting the tabletop there was certainly a challenge, though. My sawhorses are about 34″ high, while the legs are about 27″ high. I placed the three legs under the top and then began to carefully remove the sawhorses. The plan was to lift the wide end of the tabletop up, slide the sawhorse out and lower the end of the top onto the legs, then repeat the process on the other end. I immediately ran into a problem. Once I got the first sawhorse out and had the top resting on the two legs at the wide end of the top, removing the sawhorse from the other end was problematic. As soon as I lifted the narrow end of the top up the whole top wanted to move around, as it was just balancing on two narrow legs. That was a scary three seconds, as I quickly put the narrow end back down on the sawhorse to stabilize the top.
The thought of this top falling over and crashing onto the ground was an awful one. It would likely snap in two, as it would certainly fall onto something. With another set of hands this process would have been much simpler, but I was working alone. I decided to set up bolsters at the ends and sides of the top, so if it did want to move in any direction the bolsters would stop it from moving more than an inch or so. I used a few white oak offcuts to extend towards the top and brace each edge. These offcuts were clamped to my workbench, a large shop cabinet that was screwed to the wall, my table saw and my router table.
With the top surrounded so it couldn’t go too far, I again removed the first sawhorse, balanced the wide end on the two turned legs and repeated the process for the other sawhorse. This time the top shifted forward when I lifted the narrow end up, but came to a solid stop against one of the bolsters so I could move the second sawhorse out and position the third leg. The top softly seated against the third leg and I breathed a sigh of relief. At this point, even though the legs weren’t attached to the underside of the top, the table was surprisingly steady.
Put it back
Even though it was fairly stably balanced on top of the legs, I wasn’t going to trust it for any length of time. I was now confident in the location of the legs beneath the top, so I marked their locations and brought back the sawhorses.
Now that the leg locations were determined, I could add the inserts in the top of the table, directly above where the three legs would be. These inserts gave the illusion that the legs extended through the tabletop. In fact, the original design I got from my client had the actual legs extending through the top, but thankfully I was able to talk my client out of that approach. Besides being hard to do, having the legs permanently attached to the table would only make it much harder to move. The weight and dimensions of the top was a lot to handle, even though it was only 1-3/4″ thick, without having the attached legs to deal with, too.
Inserts
I first made a practice end grain insert that I immediately messed up. This is why it was in scrap wood. I used a router equipped with a template guide to guide a 1/4″ spiral router bit. One series of passes would create the cavity in the top and another series of passes would create the end grain insert. I used a small ring with a 1/4″ wall thickness (the same width as the bit I was using) to account for the kerf the bit creates. The template guide alone creates the inserts, while the ring is added to create the cavity in the top. I mistakenly switched that up in my practice attempt.
First, I made the three end grain inserts, which went well. Next, I had to rout the three cavities in the tabletop. This was the operation I had feared for the last two weeks. My main concern was that the ring would somehow vibrate itself loose while routing the cavity, causing the bit to machine a wider cavity than the insert would cover. This would be disastrous.
I proceeded with heaps of caution, regularly checking the ring was staying in place. Because routers work best when removing only a small amount of material with each pass, I only removed about 1/8″ of wood at a time, then double-checked the ring. The process is seemingly simple, but there are still a lot of things that can go wrong, and any of them would mean huge problems. The thought of having to rework this top to remove some material, only to replace it with another length of white oak, was not a pleasant one.
Very carefully, very slowly, I was able to rout the three cavities in the top. I immediately felt my shoulders drop away from my head and relax. It’s not that this operation was overly difficult and risky, it’s just that the workpiece had a lot of time and money invested in it already and it would take a lot more time and money to fix a mistake if one happened.
I fit the inserts, then eased their top edges, along with the edges of the cavities, leaving a small reveal between the two, and then glued them in. Next, I’ll wrap up sanding the top and legs and apply a coat of finish to everything. Sometime over the weekend I’ll find someone to help me flip the top over so I can properly locate and secure the three legs, sand the underside of the top and apply a finish to it. I could barely lower the top by about 5″ the other day, so there’s not even a remote chance I’ll be able to flip this monster of a top over by myself.
Ready to Rout
This end grain blank is ready for action. I used this 1/2" thick plywood template to guide the template guide in my router’s base to leave me with a perfectly sized insert. I just had to use my mitre saw to crosscut the insert from the blank.
Nerve Wracking
The same template was used to create the perimeter of the cavity in the tabletop. Once I had the outer material removed, I used a different router, equipped with a 3/4" straight bit, to remove the waste in the centre area and refine the depth of the cavity to accept the insert. Notice the small ring on the template guide. Its outer wall is 1/4" wide and offsets the bit by its exact dimension.
Rob is a studio furniture maker and the editor at Canadian Woodworking & Home Improvement. Instagram at @RobBrownTeaches
Thanks for this “build along” series. My heart was in my throat during your description of these critical steps as we’ve all been there. It would have been nice to see some photos of the balancing act but I understand you were, um, “busy”.